First Look: 2010 Donruss Elite

I have never been a fan of early release products mainly because of the lack of the rookies in their nfl uniforms, an overabundance of bad designs, and tons sticker autos. This set is usually one of the first off the presses, and last year was nothing short of a complete crapfest that broke all of my rules. The cards looked horrible with the electrical storm background, the swatches were grossly out of place, and the whole thing was parallel after parallel.

This year's set preliminarily looks a lot better because of a more simplistic design with less confusing lines and better layout. The subsets look a better as well due to less swatch placement issues and better looking cards - so far. The problem is that we are STILL going to get those stupid ass signed manupatch things, the set will be 100% foilboard, and im sure these will ALL be stickers. Typical Panini stuff. I really wish the companies would wait until after the premiere to do their second sets after the normal draft set, but it looks like Panini and UD will both continue the pre-premiere onslaught.

Regardless of how much better this looks than last year's abomination, there is nothing new about Elite. The Torch autos will still be the chase, all the subsets are the same, and there probably wont be any cards worth paying 100 bucks a box for. At least they are offering one good auto per case, but from what I remember, the cases are expensive and have large configurations.

Prestige Chrome Elite is stale beyond believe thanks to years of producing EXACTLY the same crap year after year. At least Bowman Chrome, a set functioning on a similar concept, looks good each year, adds a few things here and there, and maintains a low price point under 60 bucks. Elite does none of those things. Thats why I love the Chromes and stay far away from this.